We’ve been kind of back in a food slump as of late, lacking the motivation or inspiration to regularly try new recipes. Maybe it’s the changing weather, the shift from cold-escaping comfort food to refreshing spring food. Or maybe it’s the chore of having to go to the grocery store when all we want to do is hang out with Baby Boy and go for walks. Whatever it is, we’re kind of in a slump. How about you?

Thank goodness for Taste Test Thursday. Even in a slump we try to make ourselves try something new at least once a week. This week Rachel and I agreed on popcorn chicken from the food blog BlogChef. I’ve been following BlogChef for well over a year now, always getting new recipe posts in my RSS reader. I’m embarrassed to say it took me this long to finally try one of the many delicious recipes posted on BlogChef but I’m glad we finally did – so tasty!

As a kid I used to love popcorn chicken. Heck, I still do. And why not? The bite size chicken pieces allow for more of the delicious breading!

The recipe calls for deep frying, but we don’t have a deep fryer and I’m really hesitant to do any deep frying. What we did instead was use enough olive oil to coat the bottom of our frying pan to crisp the sides of the chicken. It worked out just fine for us, so if you don’t want to deep fry either you can still make this.

Double dipping on the battering process definitely makes for a thicker and crispier crust, which we liked. But it does, obviously, take longer. Our first batch we double dipped, and the second I only dipped once. If you are crunched for time (or super hungry, like we were) don’t worry about the double dip- the popcorn chicken is still delicious.

This recipe definitely helped ease us out of our food slump, at least for a short while. What do you do when you’re in a food slump?

Roll each piece of chicken first in the flour mixture, then dip in the egg mixture and then roll in panko bread crumbs. Once the chicken pieces are coated once repeat the process by rolling the chicken bits in the flour mixture, dipping in the egg mixture and rolling in the panko bread crumbs.